


We'll Meet Again

by Dearly_Divided



Series: Love is not a victory march... [1]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: A hint of fluff, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Burke's an ass, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lawyer John, Psuedo dad Whitehorse, ambiguous ending, pre-game, soft john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dearly_Divided/pseuds/Dearly_Divided
Summary: Colour burst across her field of vision is such dazzling and bright hues that it made her head spin and her brain hurt.And yet Rook couldn’t tear her gaze away from him.His eyes were the most beautiful blue.





	We'll Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> The Soulmate AU no one asked for - enjoy!

Meeting her soulmate was supposed to be some beautiful, magical moment. Rook’s eyes would catch his across the room and suddenly the world would light up in brilliant shades of reds and blues and greens - colours she’d only ever heard others talk about in quiet reverence and wonder.

Her parents had been soulmates. She remembered listening with rapt attention as her mother described the moment that she first laid eyes on Rook’s father ‘_He was wearing a green coat_.’ She’d have this wistful, tender look on her face, and she leaned in close like she was about to tell Rook a secret, ‘_It was such a lovely colour…_’

Before he’d died, her father had admitted to Rook that he wore a splash of green every day, just for her.

Rook had spent her entire life waiting to meet her soulmate, to have that breathtaking moment when everything would change and suddenly, she’d be able to see it all.

In the end, it hadn’t exactly been the fairy tale meet cute she’d spent her life believing she’d get. Working at that hotel was hardly her dream job, just something to pay the bills as she tried to figure out what the fuck she was supposed to do with her life. It was more late nights than she’d like, the work wasn’t glamorous, and she had to deal with all manner of people speaking down and stepping over her. But it was a step above minimum wage, and there was a lot to be said for that. 

Rook was barely paying attention that night. It was some big schmooze fest – a bunch of hotshot lawyers and their rich clients getting drunk off expensive champagne and eating canapes with caviar. On the surface it looked like the height of refined luxury, but Rook had had to serve at enough of these kind of parties to know that it was all a façade. She’d had to clean up after them, more often than not, behind closed doors these people were far from dignified.

It wasn’t like Rook hadn’t heard the two of them going at it in the supply closet – the loud moans and screams of ‘_Yes, fuck, yes, harder, John_!’ had been hard to miss. Under normal circumstances, she would have more than happily left them to it, it was really no business of hers who fucked who or where (though why they hadn’t just gone to find a room upstairs or hell, even a damned bathroom, she’d never understand), but some dunk asshole had already managed to knock the champagne tower over and Rook’s boss had ordered her to clean it and _quickly_, and the supplies she needed to do so were in that closet.

Maybe, if she hadn’t already been on thin ice with her boss, she might have just let it go and let it be somebody else’s problem. But she _was_ on thin ice, and she needed this job for a little bit longer at least, so with a deep breath to steel herself for what was undoubtedly going to be an awkward experience for everyone involved, Rook raised her hand and knocked, _loudly_.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I really, really need to grab a few things…” she trailed off uneasily, a blush already tinting her cheeks.

She didn’t hear a reply but another long, deep moan, this one definitely from a man, followed by a loud crash – they’d knocked something from the shelves. Just wonderful.

She was almost positive that they hadn’t heard her, but Rook couldn’t wait around forever. She gave them another few seconds in the hope that they were at least trying to make themselves decent before she twisted the knob and pushed.

“I am _so_ sorry, I just need-” the words died on her lips as she took in the sight before her.

For one split second, Rook could only stare. The woman, beautiful and only a few years older than herself, had her dress hiked up to her waist, her breasts spilling from the low neckline, her long legs wrapped around her partner’s waist –

The very moment that Rook’s eyes drifted to the dark-haired man fucking her, ridiculously handsome even with his shirt askew and his pants around his ankles, everything changed. It wasn’t like the slap her mother had told her about, no, it felt like being hit by a freight train, it knocked the breath right out of her. Colour burst across her field of vision is such dazzling and bright hues that it made her head spin and her brain _hurt_.

And yet Rook couldn’t tear her gaze away from him.

His eyes were the most beautiful blue.

Time slowed and stretched as Rook’s heart squeezed painfully, pounding so loudly she could hear it in her ears. The woman was yelling something and gesturing wildly, but the words didn’t sink in, Rook couldn’t think, could barely focus on breathing as she stood utterly frozen and stared at him.

Her soulmate.

He was _her_ soulmate…

And yet instead of the bliss and euphoria she should have been experiencing, Rook just felt nausea rise up and crash over her like a wave. Because yes, his eyes were a lovely blue – it was a shame then, that his pupils were blown unnaturally wide. The faint dusting of white powder just beneath his right nostril and the pungent smell of whiskey that permeated the tiny closet only served as the final nail in the coffin.

It was almost like an out of body experience. As the man, John, if the woman’s pleasured screams been anything to go by, tried to untangle himself from the buxom blonde (with her pretty _red_ dress), Rook stumbled backwards.

This was wrong – she wasn’t – he was- no.

_No._

She shook her head, trying and failing to form words as tears sprung to her eyes. It felt like her heart was breaking, actually shattering into pieces as the future she’d painted herself crumbled into dust before her – it hurt more than she cared to admit.

He reached for her, but she jerked away, yanking her arm back as if he were poison. The hurt, kicked puppy look he wore was just another stab of pain in a sea of bitter disappointment welling within her.

“Please, no, this isn’t-”

But Rook didn’t give him a chance to finish. Maybe it was cowardice, but she turned around and ran like the devil himself was at her heels.

She didn’t stop until she found her way home, and even then it was all she could do to throw herself onto her bed and sob.

The next night, Rook returned to the hotel and apologised to her manager for running off halfway through the event. Truth be told they’d barely noticed that she’d gone at all. After promising that it wouldn’t happen again (how could it? She only had one soulmate) it was swept under the rug and not mentioned again, though Rook did notice the slight pitying glances the older woman sent her way over the following weeks.

If she expected for him to show up at the hotel and ask for her, she was sorely disappointed, but maybe that was for the best. It wasn’t that she hated him, or even that she blamed him – it was her own fault for being naïve and a fool. Being soulmates didn’t magically grant her a happily ever after, and she was an idiot for believing otherwise.

So it was a slight surprise then, when she staggered home after another exhausting event not two weeks after their disastrous meeting there were two dozen blood red roses sitting on her doorstep. There was a note sitting nestled into the flowers – handwritten in an elegant, flowing black script.

_My dear,_

_One day I’ll be a better man for you._

_Love,  
John_.

There was no number to call, no pleading, no apologies. Rook was actually kind of relieved that he hadn’t offered any. Truthfully, John had done nothing wrong – it wasn’t like they were in any kind of a relationship, she had no right to be mad at him. Sure, getting high off his mind on cocaine and fucking the nearest warm hole with perky, bouncing tits were hardly stellar life choices, but they were the ones he’d made and who was Rook to judge?

They were soulmates, not lovers.

If nothing else, she should be thankful. Whether John was with her or not he’d given her a gift - for the first time in her life, Rook could see the world in all its beauty.

Not long after her father’s death, Rook asked her mother whether it had been worth it, not meeting her soulmate only to suffer the pain of losing him, Rook knew she’d never regret that, but getting to see all the brilliant, shimmering colours only to have it all ripped away when he died.

Maybe the grief had still been too raw, because she’d just looked at Rook with her red rimmed eyes and laughed – a sound so painfully void of joy. “I couldn’t give a shit about the colours.”

Sure, the colours were a lovely thing, but they weren’t the be all end all.

Rook could live her life without him and his pretty blue eyes, and when the world eventually faded back to grey, Rook would survive that too.

So she tucked away her pain, the phantom ache in her heart that longed for him, and got on with her life. Some people weren’t meant to have a soulmate, and that was okay.

Rook didn’t need him, nor did she want him, and from the lack of contact on his end (flowers notwithstanding), she assumed that John felt the same.

***

Years passed, Rook flitted from job to job. A career in law enforcement was hardly part of her plan, but like everything else it just seemed to… happen. Earl Whitehorse had been fishing buddies with her dad, way back in the sixties. Rook just so happened to pop back home on the day he came to visit her mother. They got talking, Earl had always had a soft spot for her, and when she mentioned that she happened to be between jobs, he less than casually dropped in the fact that there was an opening for a Junior Deputy in his department. It was decent pay, he’d told her, and the other Deputies were good people. The town was quiet, peaceful even – not a bad place to set down some roots. They’d train her right up and everything.

For the life of her, Rook couldn’t quite fathom why she’d said yes, but by the time Earl had left that night, tipping his hat at her mother and shaking Rook’s hand, she’d all but signed the contract.

Not four weeks later, Rook was loading the contents of her apartment into a moving van, bound for Hope County, Montana.

Whitehorse greeted her with an uncharacteristic bear hug when she turned up at the station, and there was almost a skip in his step when he introduced her to the team – Staci and Joey, the two other Deputies who were nice enough, if not a little surprised by how utterly green she was, and Nancy, their middle aged and motherly dispatch operator.

He hadn’t been wrong; Hope County was beautiful. She picked a small place in the valley, nestled between the Henbane and the Whitetail mountains. Rook wasn’t entirely sure that the vibrant greens and yellows of the forest at her doorstep, not the breathtaking pink and orange sunsets or even the shimmering deep blues of the rivers were something she’d ever be get used to. 

She hoped not.

Of course, as the old adage went, if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. When Earl had been selling her on life in Hope County, he’d neglected to mention the home grown doomsday cult that had settled itself into the idyllic town.

The day she saw that stupid sign, her soulmate’s smiling face plastered across the blue billboard, his hand, now covered in black ink, poised as if to bestow a blessing, Rook didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. _We love you and we will take you._

Is that what he’d meant when he’d said he’d be a better man for her?

It had felt like a gut punch – a sick, twisted kind of a joke.

Truthfully, the fact that he was apparently some kind of fucking televangelist didn’t bother her nearly as much as the fact that he was _there_, in Hope County.

The night she walked away from him, Rook left John and any possibility of their happily ever after in the dust. She’d love to say that it hadn’t hurt, that she hadn’t spent months pretending that it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t miss him – she didn’t _know_ him!

But that wasn’t the truth, now, was it? Rook had mourned for her soulmate, for all that he could have been and all that he wasn’t, and when the tears had run dry, she’d picked herself up off the ground and she’d tried her best to move on. Yet still, that traitorous little voice in her ear whispered that if he’d wanted her, truly wanted her like he was supposed to, he’d known exactly where to find her. Rook might have been the one to walk away, but John had been who hadn’t followed.

_That_ still stung more than it had any right to.

But as she stared up at the billboard, her hands trembling at her sides, Rook contemplated all that had led her there and wondered perhaps for the first time if she’d been wrong in her lifelong dismissal of religion. The pieces had fallen a little too perfectly to just be chance. If there was some kind of all-powerful God watching over her, then he certainly had a cruel touch.

Joey was waiting for her back at the station and she was already running late – if she stayed too much longer they’d send out a damned search party, but Rook couldn’t tear herself away. Her eyes flickered over every inch of that billboard, taking in every detail and committing it to memory – the carving on his chest, Sloth, scratched out like it was a mistake yet displayed so proudly… and the smile on his face was so self-assured, his eyes (she’d never forget those baby blues) twinkling with a knowing glint.

It felt wrong, but for the life of her Rook didn’t know _why_.

“What have they done to you?” she breathed, the words falling from her lips before she knew they’d been spoken.

But it didn’t matter, it wasn’t her concern. John Seed didn’t belong to her, he didn’t want her, and the fact that he’d decided to make his home in Hope County wasn’t going to drive her out.

Running would mean admitting that even after all this time, John had a hold over her, and Rook refused to do that.

With one last cursory glance, Rook turned on her heel, got back into her cruiser and drove away.

She didn’t sleep that night.

Nor the next.

Earl wasn’t one to pry, but he wasn’t blind. He knew about her soulmate, or at least an approximation of the full story – a secret her mother had let slip after one too many wines, and he was sharper than a lot of people gave him credit for.

He took her out for lunch and asked her just once, plain as day, who it was. He’d never judge her, didn’t care personally one way or the other (she could see just from the look in his eyes that that wasn’t quite the truth, but she appreciated the sentiment), but if it was going to affect her job, he needed to know.

So Rook told him, trying not to wince as his eyes widened and something dangerously close to fear crossed his weathered face. He nodded, gruffly pulling her into a brief and only slightly awkward one armed hug, and he didn’t say another word on the matter.

But it didn’t slip her notice that she wasn’t sent out with Joey and Staci to answer disputes in the Valley anymore, or that the Sheriff kept a closer eye on her comings and goings.

For a while Rook thought that maybe things would work themselves out. Despite John’s attempts to leave his mark on the Valley as a whole and Fall’s End in particular, he seemed to prefer staying closer to home, which suited Rook just fine. With Earl keeping her out of trouble it was almost as if John Seed didn’t exist.

Of course, if Rook had learned nothing from her past experiences, it was that fate was rarely so kind where she was involved.

The moment Deputy Marshal Cameron Burke set foot in the station with that smug little smirk, cocky attitude and ego that barely fit through the doorway Rook knew that her honeymoon period was about to come to an abrupt, screeching end.

Earl and the others had tried to protect her from it, but it wasn’t like she didn’t have ears – people talked, Rook knew exactly the sorts of rumours that swelled through the county about the Project and the kinds of things they were up to. She’d spent enough time in the Spread Eagle to know what the people of the Valley thought of her Soulmate and his brothers; John Seed was an absolute fucking psychopath, as Mary May had so eloquently put it.

And all the while Rook had smiled like the words and the implications behind them didn’t tear her apart and flood her with guilt. Maybe if she hadn’t walked away, maybe if she hadn’t _abandoned_ her soulmate…

_One day I’ll be a better man for you._

It was hardly a surprise when the Marshal slammed the warrant for Joseph Seed’s arrest down on the Sheriff’s desk like it proclaimed him king. There was a sense of tired finality in Earl’s tone as he told Joey and Staci to get ready – wheels were up in half an hour.

She’d resigned herself to staying behind and keeping an eye on things at the station when Burke had turned his beady little eyes on her.

“What, you waiting for an invitation or something? Get your ass into gear, rookie.”

And Earl, bless his soul, had jumped to his feet to argue against it, with Staci and Hudson right there beside him, pleading with the Marshal to bench her.

She was too green.

She didn’t have enough experience.

She could barely aim her gun much less have the stomach to pull the trigger if needed.

She was a _liability._

Every word of it was a lie, hastily thrown together to try and protect her. She shouldn’t have been surprised, Staci and Joey were damned good at their job – they might not have had the whole truth, but they knew enough, or they’d guessed as much, and it didn’t change a goddamned thing. It was a small comfort, if nothing else.

In the end it didn’t make a difference, for whatever reason, Burke wouldn’t hear a bar of it. It was almost funny, if they really didn’t want her there, all they had to do was tell Burke the truth. There was no chance in hell that he’d knowingly allow John Seed’s Soulmate within 50 feet of the compound on an operation like this – she’d be lucky if he didn’t kick her out of the station altogether. But neither Staci nor Joey would betray her trust like that, and Whitehorse was the closest thing she had to family here, and that meant something.

Feeling like she was heading for the hangman’s noose, Rook marched to that helicopter. She didn’t say a word as they took off, merely stared out the window as they flew over the Henbane, the hazy blue brightened by the first glimmer of the morning light just beginning to break over the horizon.

It didn’t matter whether he was there or not, John was an ex lawyer, even if the arrest did go as smoothly as the Marshal seemed convinced that it would, there was no doubt that John would rock up at the station to attempt to free his older brother. Rook might not have seen him in action, at least, not as a lawyer, but she got the sense he wasn’t the type to lose.

It was naïve to think she could live not more than five miles from her soulmate for the rest of her life and not expect to see him.

But this, this wasn’t what she wanted.

As she jumped off the helicopter, her boots crunching against the dirt road that led to the compound, Rook stilled, a sudden thought occurring to her - John had been high as a fucking kite the night they bonded, it was entirely possible that he didn’t even remember what she looked like.

Despite it all, the butterflies beating away in her stomach, the racing of her heart and her deep, shaky breaths, Rook almost laughed.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t fear the gripped her as they strode through Joseph’s compound under the wrathful gazes of his loyal followers, but anticipation. Every step felt surer than the last, and when they reached the wooden oak doors and Whitehorse met her gaze, his green eyes fixed firmly on hers, she didn’t flinch.

“On me, Rook.”

She just nodded, her hand resting on her holstered pistol.

Joey clapped a hand on her shoulder as Rook brushed past her to get into position, shooting her a meaningful look. “You’ll be fine,” she murmured.

The corners of Rook’s lips twitched into a half-hearted smile - neither of them really believed that, but it was too late to regret the decisions that had led them both here.

Singing surged from inside the Church, but the moment Burke kicked open those doors the voices faltered and fell silent. Rook felt the cackling electricity in the air as they advanced down the aisle, Burke and Earl leading the way while she followed behind. Every step echoed out, mingling with the Joseph’s fervent preaching.

But Rook didn’t hear a word of it, it was nothing but white noise buzzing in her ears. Truth be told, Rook barely paid any attention to the Father. Like a homing beacon, her soul calling to its other half, she found him.

There, standing a few feet behind his brother, was John.

Foolishly, _stupidly_, Rook had thought she was prepared to see him again, but the very moment her eyes met his, her breath caught and just like the first time she’d seen him, her world upended.

Rook had lost count of how many times she’d driven past that damned billboard, but seeing him there in the flesh, it was like staring at an eclipse; even as it burned, she couldn’t bear to tear her eyes away. Earl, Joseph, the Church, it all just faded away to nothing as John met her gaze and his carefully crafted smirk faltered.

The small sliver of remanning rationality tried to steel her for the rejection to come, the abject horror, or perhaps even worse, the utter indifference that would destroy her a second time.

Instead, his eyes softened and he smiled at her with an awestruck reverence that stole the very breath from her lungs. Just like the last time her head spun, her heart beating like a hummingbird against her ribs and a feeling of pure, unadulterated happiness welled within her.

It felt like coming home after a long time away – a comforting sense of familiarity that warmed her from the inside out and made her want to grin like a fool.

She took a step towards him, it was only natural – he needed her, he wanted her, he was her _soulmate_ \- but a strong hand, Whitehorse’s, she distantly recognised, caught at her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.

And like that, the spell shattered and reality crashed back around her; that warm fuzzy glow in her stomach grew cold and heavy.

This was _wrong_.

“-not let you take me,” Joseph’s voice cut through the haze, yanking her back to the situation at hand. Reluctantly, Rook tore her attention away from John to face him only for a spike of unease jolt through her body. The vitriol and hatred she’d expected was absent from his face - behind those yellow lenses, his eyes (not quite the same pretty blue as John’s) were contemplative and somehow that felt so much worse.

Unlike Joseph, Burke hadn’t been paying attention to her, hadn’t noticed the ghostly pallor of her face, nor the way that Whitehorse gripped her hand as if he were afraid of what might happen if he let go. He hadn’t felt the tension shift in the room, and so he shot her a steely glare, his lip curling into a sneer.

“Goddamnit Rook, will you put the fucking cuffs on him already?” he snapped.

Anything to get her out of there – all of this, it was a mistake. She should have turned around and hightailed it the day she saw that stupid sign.

_Please don’t say anything, just let me go,_ she begged silently as she reached for the cuffs on her belt.

Moving with robotic detachment, pretending that she couldn’t feel the weight of John’s imploring gaze burning into her.

_I’m nothing, nobody._

The cuffs snapped into place with surprising ease, Joseph didn’t fight her as she put a hand on his shoulder and tugged him forward. He was too calm, too composed for a supposedly defeated man, but Rook wasn’t paying enough attention to either notice or care.

“Please…” It was barely more than a broken whisper, but it echoed across the church like a scream, tearing at the remaining shreds of her heart. Her step faltered just for a second, but she didn’t turn around even as every fibre of her being begged her to.

With leaden feet, Rook steered Joseph from his Church, leaving her soulmate behind for the second time.

It wasn’t any easier.

Truthfully, Rook didn’t remember the walk to the chopper. All she could recall was the weightless, awful feeling of freefall, an alarm blaring as panicked shouts rose around her and the sound of Joseph singing.

When she came to, the world was upside down. Her vision swam, her head pounding – keeping her eyes open, much less alert, was an effort. She could do little but blink as Joseph Seed, miraculously freed from his cuffs and standing the right way up, stepped into her field of vision. His head cocked to the side and when one of his hands reached for her, Rook didn’t have strength to flinch away from his touch.

“I told him that you would return before the end,” he mused, a strange, soft smile upon his face as he regarded her, his long fingers brushing the hair away from her face. He looked as if he was about to say something else, but a distraught yelling, getting louder by the second made him pause.

It took Rook a moment to realise that it wasn’t mindless shrieking, but actual words, one word in particular being repeated again and again; her name.

It hardly mattered, her eyes fluttered shut as she once more slipped into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness.

***

Rook had no way of knowing how long she was out for, though by the golden light she could see even behind closed lids, it was still daytime.

She was lying down on something soft, a bed, no doubt, and while her entire body ached, it was the feeling of a warm hand wrapped around hers that drew her attention. With a low groan, Rook blinked her eyes open, taking a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness and take in her surroundings.

A light gasp reminded her that she wasn’t alone. Slowly, Rook let her head roll to the side of her pillow, and sure enough there he was - her soulmate.

John.

He looked tired, his dark brown hair, usually slicked back, falling across his red rimmed eyes. He’d been crying, that much was evident, but as her green eyes met his blues all traces of worry and fear bled away into sweet relief.

“Oh thank god, you’re awake,” he said with a breathless laugh.

Rook frowned, opening her mouth to say something only to wince as pain lanced across her face. John’s tattooed fingers were on her cheek in an instant, soothing her with gentle caresses. “Shh, don’t talk, my dear. It’s okay, you’re safe here, I promise.”

“J-John,” she croaked, and at the sound of his name from her lips, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, another brilliant smile lit his handsome face.

He stroked her face again, leaning down to press his lips against hers for the briefest of moments, pulling away with another giddy laugh. “We’re together, darling, that’s all that matters. I’ve changed, I’m not the man you met, he- I wasn’t… I promised to be a better man - so that I’d deserve you.” Another kiss, longer this time and less chaste, “I’ll be good, you’ll see. I’ll love you like you deserve to be loved.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it, please leave some kudos or comments if you did. Also, feel free to come say hi on tumblr - @seedlingsinner😊


End file.
